Fox contributor Karl Rove deceitfully shuffled the words of former U.N. ambassador Susan Rice in an effort to accuse her of pushing a “contemptible falsehood” about the 2012 Benghazi attacks and claiming that she was part of an “endless Benghazi coverup.”

In a February 26 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal “The Endless Benghazi Coverup,” Rove took Rice's comments about the violent protests that were then erupting across the Middle East out of context, falsely representing them as a specific reference to the attacks on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya. According to Rove, Rice said the Benghazi attack was “absolutely” the result of the protests against a "'very hateful, very offensive video that has offended many people around the world":

The worst part of National Security Adviser Susan Rice's comments on Sunday's “Meet The Press” was that she expressed no regret for saying that the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on U.S. outposts in Benghazi were “absolutely” the result of protests against a “very hateful, very offensive video that has offended many people around the world.”

This is an egregious mischaracterization of the ambassador's words. In context, Rice's comment clearly referred to the protests that had broken out throughout the Middle East and not specifically to Benghazi.

Rove was referencing Rice's September 16 interview on Fox News' Fox News Sunday, which focused at different points on the anti-American protests that had broken out across the Middle East as well as the attack in Benghazi.

Wallace led with a question about the protests that were occurring “in two dozen countries across the Islamic world,” and asked whether Rice agreed with White House press secretary Jay Carney's assessment that the protests came in “response to a video that is offensive” and had “nothing to do with the president's policies.” The quote Rove cited was pulled from that response, and was not at all focused on the Benghazi attack (emphasis added on the portions quoted by Rove):

WALLACE: This week, there have been anti-American protests in two dozen countries across the Islamic world. The White House says it has nothing to do with the president's policies.

Let's watch. [...] You don't really believe that.

RICE: Chris, absolutely I believe that. In fact, it is the case. We had the evolution of the Arab spring over the last many months. But what sparked the recent violence was the airing on the Internet of a very hateful very offensive video that has offended many people around the world.

Beyond his misrepresentation of Rice's comments, Rove failed to add any new information to the increasingly stale media conversation about the Benghazi attack. The rest of his piece devolved into a dissection of whether or not “she was merely sharing 'the best information that we had at the time'” - something that Rove called “a contemptible falsehood.” But there too, the evidence is on Rice's side.

Rove and other Fox figures have repeatedly pushed the smear that Rice deceptively attributed the Benghazi attack to the anti-Muslim video for political reasons, but even this unusually creative distortion doesn't change the facts.